In Istanbul, protestors chained themselves to the wire fencing of an American high school and shouted "We will not allow our soldiers to be killed" and "We will not be soldiers for the US."

Anti-riot police detained six among the 100-strong group, Anatolia news agency reported.

About 500 people attended a separate demonstration on Taksim central square and a third rally was held outside the offices of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the capital Ankara, dozens of members of trade unions, political parties and civic groups gathered in front of the parliament, where legislators on Tuesday voted for a government motion to dispatch troops to neighboring Iraq.

"Turkey should take its hands off Iraq," the group chanted.

"Turkey has been dragged by the 8.5-billion-dollar carrot," opposition MP Haluk Koc, who joined the demonstrators, said in reference to the 8.5 billion dollars (7.2 billion euros) that Washington agreed to loan Ankara last month in return for its "cooperation" in Iraq.

"Don't send our sons to the Iraqi hell. Don't make them shields for American soldiers," protestors chanted in the northern city of Trabzon, the news agency reported.

In the southern towns of Mersin and Ceyhan, police used truncheons to break up Kurdish demonstrations against the deployment of troops after protestors began chanting slogans in favor of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Forty activists, among them the local head of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), Turkey's main pro-Kurdish movement, were taken into custody in Mersin, while another 23 people were detained in Ceyhan, party spokesmen told

"We are worried that the decision (to send troops) constitutes the start of a process with an uncertain future. The decision, taken despite opposition from the people, has brought Turkey to the edge of war," DEHAP said in a statement.

Turkish Kurds -- just as their kin in Iraq -- worry that Turkey's military involvement in Iraq could thwart further political gains by the Iraqi Kurds and increase pressure on the United States to clamp down on thousands of Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in the Kurdish-held north of the country.

Turkey and the United States have recently agreed on an "action plan" against the rebels, members of Ocalan's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington consider a terrorist group.

Recent opinion polls indicate that some 70 percent of the Turkish population is against sending troops to Iraq.

But the government has ignored public opposition, arguing that such a move will help improve ties with the United States and give Turkey a say in the shaping of post-war Iraq.

Dispatching troops to Iraq is not only controversial in Turkey and among Kurds in Iraq, but with the interim government in Baghdad which on Wednesday bluntly said no to the deployment, showing the increasing rift between the domestic leadership and Washington.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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